Competition 38: Substitute Lines

In the 1950s, the Woolmark Company / International Wool Secretariat ran a campaign to publicise the virtues of the traditional textile. They held a competition in which members of the public were invited to send in verse which had to end with the line 'There is no substitute for wool.' There was a great response, despite the paucity of full rhymes for the final word. Winners received £5 (over £100 at today’s values) and their poems appeared as illustrated advertisements in trains and London Underground carriages.

Lupolings are given an easier task in Competition 38. You are asked for up to 16 lines, though fewer are also very acceptable, which must contain somewhere There is no substitute for . . . anything you like, and one syllable or several. By 15th August, please, headed Competition 38.